Behavioral Assessment of Pain

Abstract

Pain is a universal human experience; every person, with the exception of the unfortunate few that are born with congenital pain perception deficiencies (Sternbach, 1963), experiences severe pain in his/her lifetime. Bonica (1981) estimates that sixty-five million Americans suffer from chronic pain of such severity as to cause them to seek therapy by physicians and other health professionals. Given the impact that pain imposes on our lives, it is disturbing to find that the dimensions of pain have not been clearly defined and that the assessment of pain has not been standardized. Sternbach (1978) and Wolff (1978, 1980) argue that our current pain measurement techniques are inadequate, while Hendler (1981) suggests that pain is not a measurable experience.

Cross, D.V., Tursky, B. & Lodge, M. The role of regression and range effects in determination of the power function for electrical shock.Perceptionand Psychophysics, 1975, 18, 9–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Elmore, A. & Tursky, A. A comparison of the psychophysiological and clinical response to biofeedback for temporal pulse amplitude reduction and biofeedback for increases in hand temperature in the treatment of migraine. Headache, in press.Google Scholar